He Says It to All the Girls
by fasterassembly
Summary: Souji and Yosuke have sex and trigger an unfortunate "feature." In the afterglow, Souji explains some game mechanics in the meta way.


Yosuke didn't think Souji would be that upset about the sex.

Sure, they had been two teenage virgins. And two guys. Having anal sex for the first time.

All right, Yosuke could see that things were already kind of funky. It hadn't been mind-blowing or anything, and Souji was the one directing everything even though he was on the bottom (or maybe Yosuke should've expected that after all), but Yosuke had an awesome orgasm and he got off Souji later with his mouth. So it hadn't been too bad.

He just couldn't understand why Souji was sitting on the couch looking so… annoyed. And Souji's "annoyed" was Chie's "gonna-galactic-punt-you-now." The guy was kind of… pissed.

"It wasn't that bad, was it?" Yosuke said. He rooted around his futon for his clothes. Souji was lounging around his room naked and… yeah, it was kind of hot, but Yosuke didn't want to run around with his family jewels on display. Souji's courage might be comparable to the Schwarzenegger, but Yosuke's sure wasn't.

"… That's not it."

"Uh, lighten up! At least we used a condom, and we're both virgins, so—"

"It's not the STDs I'm worried about, Yosuke," Souji said. He stood up and winced slightly.

"D-does it hurt?"

"Next time, we'll switch," Souji said with a small smile. He paced around a bit, a little grimace on his face. "It's not that bad. Just a little… squishy."

"… Squishy?"

"I can show you what I mean later tonight."

"So it was good for you?"

"… Yeah, partner." The smile this time was wide. And a little dopey. And really, really bright. Something in Yosuke's chest leapt up, and suddenly his entire body was warm. "It was pretty good for me, too. But that's not the problem."

"Wh—then what is?"

"Yosuke. Have you ever wondered why I never dated any of the girls?"

"You're not gay? Wait—you're a switch hitter!"

"I prefer 'pansexual', personally," Souji said with a sigh. "Yosuke, the reason I never dated any of the girls was because the game designers created a lock-in mechanism—"

"What?"

"—In other words, they gave me a choice between 'romance' and 'friendship' paths. And as rewarding as it'd be to complete all of those paths on the romance path, all of those romance paths have mandatory sex at the end of them. That isn't the problem. No, the real problem is when the designers implemented their dateable links feature, they activated a piece of code that synchronizes the abilities of the Personae I'm able to create and summon with the person I've just slept with for heightened compatibility on the sexual and emotional planes. However, they didn't figure out how to turn off that feature. If I slept with Chie, then I'd be stuck using Chariot Personae for the rest of the in-game timeline. Similarly, if I were to sleep with Yukiko, then I'd only be able to use Priestess Personae. That might be nice and all, but some of my favorite Personae are in the Sun and Star arcanae, and I'm not about to sleep with that girl who looks like she's in elementary school to keep Horus. And I'm definitely not boning Teddie until I reach level eighty-seven, and that's not going to happen until I hunt for the Pringle Kings in Magatsu Mandala, and that definitely isn't going to happen until December. All right, I thought, so if I date the guys instead, then I should be able take advantage of that loophole, except the lock-in mechanism activates any time I fuck someone. So, I figured, if I let you do me instead…"

"… wait, you would've dated anyone as long as they gave you the right Persona?"

"… I guess it might be working on the definition of 'sex, of any kind, regardless of whether or not it causes orgasm, and only if it's nonmastubatory,'" Souji said glumly.

Yosuke took a moment to absorb what he just heard. Then he said, "… Man, you're kind of an asshole, you know that?"

"You liked it."

"I did," Yosuke said wistfully. "But not in the gay way."

"Separation of story and game mechanics," Souji said. "Although I didn't think the programmers would put in a back door for a bromance path. Or that they'd show what really happened at Kanji's rank ten event."

"Wh—"

"Never mind," Souji said. "I can't summon any Personae except Magicians. And you know what the problem with that is?" He snapped his fingers. "They're almost all fire-types. I can't do any support buffs, and Pyro Jack only knows Media, and Pixie's still level four. We'd be slaughtered in the dungeons right now."

"W-well, is there a way to fix this?" Yosuke said. "Any way at all?" As much as it hurt to hear that Souji would bang just about anyone as long as it'd get him a Persona, some things were more important. Kind of. He'd punch Souji later.

"Yes," Souji said. "There's a patch available to fix the 'feature'. But…"

"… But?"

"Instead of restoring the ability to summon all the Personae, it stops the synchronization effect from its exclusivity principle. Now instead of setting it to 'only', it sets it to 'and/or'. You know when in math you make sets—"

"Can you stop talking about this like it's a game?" Yosuke said. "Geeze."

"I still need to synchronize with everyone if I want my Personae back," Souji said. "That means we'll need to arrange two orgies. One for the Fool arcana, and the other one for Judgment."

"… Wait a second."

"Yes?"

"When you say 'all', does that mean—"

"Fool, Magician, Empress, Emperor, Hierophant, Lovers, Chariot… All of them. The Powers That Be are letting me skip Justice. Some things you don't want to Rule 34. But I still have to do the Hermit."

"… The Hermit being—"

"The Fox."

"… Ah." Yosuke leaned back in the futon and tried to think of a world where any of that complied with any sane law of reality. Yet… despite the absurdity of the situation, it… seemed to make sense?

Souji was still naked. And now he was naked next to Yosuke. "I still love you."

Yosuke shoved Souji off the futon. "I bet you say that to all the girls!"

"Keep your door open for me—"

"Fuck you!"

"I'll look forward to that," Souji said, and left the room with a smile. A second later, he walked back in, a light blush on his cheeks. Yosuke half-considered punching Souji where he stood; considered, and thought better of it.

"I thought you were going to have sex with Rise or something," Yosuke said.

There was a brief, uncomfortable pause. Souji scratched his chin, and looked as though he was trying to find the right words. What came out of his mouth was, "Chie lives closer," which was still a goddamn disappointment.

"So what are you still doing here?"

"… The game won't let me go downstairs until I put on some clothes."


End file.
